Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to put the House on an indefinite hiatus that is now stretching into its second month while the government is shut down is the latest in a series of moves he has made that have diminished the role of Congress and shrunken the speakership at a critical moment.

...Mr. Johnson, who without the president’s backing wields little influence over his own members, has chosen to make himself subservient to Mr. Trump...

“I’m the speaker and the president,” Mr. Trump has joked, according to two people who heard the remark and relayed it on the condition of anonymity because of concern about sharing private conversations with him.

Mr. Johnson has done little in recent weeks to contest the point.

He has argued that the House, which under the Constitution has the sole power to initiate spending legislation, has no reason to meet as long as Senate Democrats are blocking a bill to reopen the government. He has refused to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who won election a month ago and has sued in federal court to be allowed to take her seat, claiming he lacks the power to do so.

He is insistent that the House has nothing to do but wait for the stalemate to end. And he defends a growing list of extreme moves by Mr. Trump.

The divide among Republicans over whether to extend expiring health insurance subsidies — Democrats’ central demand in the shutdown fight — has highlighted a political vulnerability for the party.

It has all created a strange dynamic on Capitol Hill: Mr. Johnson appears to be using the considerable power of the speakership to render the House irrelevant. ——New York Times

nytimes.com - Mike johnson speaker congress